Cooling our jets in WA- and this ain't no April Fools

Whew..... from the quarantined, not so Wandering Berkmans!

Hello to all!  We hope this blog finds you and yours safe and healthy. 

Here's just a quick update as to where we are-- thank you to all who reached out in the last couple of days.   We're thankfully healthy on this end. 

So where are we and how did we get here?

We bid lovely Lisbon an "Ate logo!" on Saturday, March 28 and were surprised to find a line outside the terminal to be let in.  We feared the crowds within but it turned out the line was just to let just small groups in at a time.  The terminal was pretty empty and very quiet.

TAP Air Portugal 🇵🇹 -- gotta love them when there are only 19 people on the flight and the flight attendants greet us with a "Sit anywhere you like!" 

First Class pods?  Yes, please!

Here I am taking extended seating to the max, literally.  It made our 9+ hours to Miami no biggie.  No wonder Rhianna looks so good at the airport-- she's flying like this, sleeping for hours...

Eating a meal like this...

That would be mushroom ravioli with creme fraiche, ceviche (I did admittedly avoid that.  Raw fish on a plane? I wasn't born yesterday.) and a panna cotta with pistachio sauce that almost made me cry.  And sparkling wine! And a cloth napkin!  And actual silverware!  Excuse our nubile-ness but we kept hitting each other every time we found something new with the meal, the pod seat, the entertainment.

Farewell, Lisboa! 

For all you budding cartographers out there

Landing in Miami, they let us out of the plane in small groups where we were briefly interviewed by healthcare personnel, our health forms were reviewed and we were asked to self quarantine for 2 weeks.  We were glad to see the situation was being taken seriously. 
 

Not so with a fair amount of airport workers, who weren't wearing masks/gloves.  And not distancing themselves from each other.  That was concerning.  On the other hand, we felt a little bad walking around with N-95 masks, that with the shortage in the US but I bought these back in January in Austin, TX in anticipation of our flight to Lisbon.  I was looking for the regular surgical masks but these two masks were literally all they had left at Walgreens.  We've worn these for weeks now.

Passengers MIA in MIA on a Saturday afternoon

On our near-empty American Air flight to Seattle we tried to cozy into First Class (I hid under a blanket, feigning sleep, leaving DB to deal with any intervention on the part of the flight attendant) but were booted out before take off.   C'mon!  There's a pandemic out there! 

We did, however, get our own 8 rows each... decidedly less Rhianna, awkwardly stretching out over 3 seats, but it did give us the rest we needed.  

We'll forever be grateful to Alex at Thrifty Car Rental for hanging out even after her shift ended to give us our car.  Last leg-- a 1 1/2 hour drive to Glacier, WA to our Airbnb bungalow in the woods.  DB worked his negotiation magic and booked this place for a song-- who else is renting right now?  Our host is happy to have a renter for over 2 months. 

 The views of Mt Baker are amazing and there are plenty of local roads to walk on to get our steps in. And lots of whimsical, Middle Earth kind of structures and trees. 

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Our reunion with Julia (and friend Esther) was sweet if not awkward, with 6 feet between us.  We made the best of it, catching up from their front stoop.  When our grocery order slated for Monday delivery was cancelled by the InstaCart strike, Julia stepped up and became our personal shopper.  Thanks, J!  <33

 J's place also became our post office box when we realized we had no winter clothes for the cold temps and snow we'd be in for the next month or so.   (Apparently Amazon can't find our airbnb.)  It was like Chanukmas all over again!

So here we are! 

yeah....

Anyone want to play Words with Friends?  We're both on and ready to kick butt!

We feel lucky to feel good now, that the kids and the family in general are well and we have a nice place in which to hole up. Thanks again for all your good wishes-- please be well, take care of yourself mentally and physically, and feel free to give us a call to shoot the proverbial sh*t if the feeling hits you. 

Gotta run-- Don and I have a Tik Tok dance to learn. 

Thanks for following along!

Don and Monica

washington